ESXi8 on NUC 12

Installing ESXi8 on NUC 12

 

Before we start take a note of two thing you should understand before installing ESXi on NUC

Issue 1: Intel CPU architecture change:

ESXi is not aware of the big.LITTLE CPU architecture that contains dedicated  P/E cores.

 This result in PSOD (Purple Scree Of Death) when try to install vmware on NUC12

Work around for this is either 

Solution 1: Disable E-Core on NUC

OR

Solution 2: You have to apply  ESXi kernel boot option:

 cpuUniformityHardCheckPanic=FALSE to allow ESXi to boot and install

 

Issue 2: Intel NIC

ESXi version  7.0 and older  does not have the Intel i225-V driver used in NUC. 

Solution 1: We have Community networking driver for ESXi that you can download from the VMware &  customize the ISO for a successful install.

OR

Solution 2: we can use ESXi8

ESXi 8.0 version will have the driver for this NIC, so we can use it without customizing. 

Hardware & software used:

•  Intel NUC 12 Pro (Wall Street Canyon) with 1Tb NVME and 64 Gb DDR 4 Ram
• VMware ESXi 8.0 ISO image
•  Rufus
•  Keyboard, HDMI monitor & USB flash drive ( minimum 8Gb ), network cable and laptop.

 

Installation process:

Step 1: Set & Verify Intel NUC 12.

 

Step 2: Login into VMware website using registered account. Download ESXi8 iso file & note license key.

 

Step 3: Create bootable flash drive using rufus.

 

 Step 4:  Installing VMWare8 on NUC 12

 ·      Since we are using VMWare8 we only need work around for CPU architecture mentioned above. This id done by applying kernel option.

 

·     ·        Insert USB with image into NUC and power on.

·      ·      During boot up of ESXi installer  , press Shift + O

·      ·      Type following

o   cpuUniformityHardCheckPanic=FALSE

 ·       Press Enter to continue

·      

 ·      Accept EULA pressing F11  

·       It will ask to select storage device for installation, please select storage and press enter to continue

·       ·       Select keyboard language (default US )

·               Set root password

     ·      Warning message: This disk will be repartitioned, press F11 to install.

·       installation will progress showing progress bar.

·       Message to remove installation media before reboot : Before rebooting we need to add kernel option again so that it boot up successfully again after installation.

 

·       To update option Press ALT + F1,  it will prompt for login (user root  & password blank)

·       Enter ESXi shell and edit following file using vi exitor

o   Vi /vmfs/volumes/BOOTBANK1/boot.cfg

o   Update option for kernalopt, append following

§  cpuUniformityHardCheckPain=FALSE

§  save file

 

 

·       Press ALT + F2 to go back to reboot prompt

·       reboot esxi by removing bootable flash drive.

·       Esxi will reboot and wait for dhcp configuration. We can set ip setting manually using F2 key

·       To permanently configure the ESXi kernel boot setting so that setting retain after future update/upgrade. Set the kernel setting using ESXCLI.  

o   To do this first login to DCUI (Direct Console User Interface) by pressing F2 and then

o   Navigating to Troubleshooting Option and enable ESXi Shell (Press Enter key to enable or disable option).

·       Switch into the ESXi shell by pressing ALT+F1 and login with root and the password you had configured during installation.

·       Now run the following ESXCLI command to configure the kernel option:Exscli system settings kernel set -s cpuUniformityHardCheckPain -v FALSE

·       Verify

 Exscli system settings kernel list -0 cpuUniformityHardCheckPain

 ·       Now you are read to plug network cable from laptop to nuc and open Gui interface for esxi8 console.

Thanks to William Lam for sharing his great work on installation procedure with workaround.

Reference link.

https://williamlam.com/2022/09/esxi-on-intel-nuc-12-pro-wall-street-canyon.html

 

 

 

Introduction to INTEL NUC 12 PRO

 What is Intel NUC?

NUC = Next Unit of Computing, it is small factor integrated cpu.

It comes with i7, i5 or i3 processor.

Model we are discussing here is  NUC12WSHI5

Following is NUC12 pro with i5 processor.

This is 12th Gen (Alder Lake) device comes with separate Performance core and Efficient core, known as P-core and E-core. In NUC12WSHI5 there are 4 P-core (with 8 thread) and 8 -E-core (with 8 thread) so you get system with 12 Cores and 16 Threads.  Nick name for NUC 12 is Wall Street Canyon.

NUC barebone comes with Intel Wi-fi 6E AX211 (Gig+) and Bluetooth Generation 5 but need RAM and Storage.

It support DDR4 max and has 2 slot, support max 64Gig memory

For storage we can use SATA or NVME PCIe-Gen 4 SSD 

We get power brick with system, but need to get power cable separately.